William Westmoreland

William Westmoreland (26 March 1914-18 July 2005) was an American general who served as commander of the MACV from 1964 to 1968 (succeeding Paul D. Harkins and preceding Creighton Abrams) and Chief of Staff of the US Army from 1968 to 1972 (succeeding Harold K. Johnson and preceding Bruce Palmer Jr.). He was in command of the US forces involved in the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1968, during which time he supported a war of attrition against the communist Viet Cong guerrillas and North Vietnamese regulars. He was replaced in 1968 as a result of the Tet Offensive, and he briefly explored a Republican presidential bid. He left the Army in 1972 and died in 2005.

Biography
William Westmoreland was born in Saxon, Spartanburg County, South Carolina in 1914. He graduated from West Point in 1936, and he served as a US Army artillery officer in North Africa and Europe during World War II before commanding airborne forces in the Korean War. In 1964, he was appointed to head Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). To stem the advance of communist-led guerrilla forces, Westmoreland used helicopters to get troops and guns into hostile terrain and mounted large-scale "search-and-destroy" operations; infantry located enemy forces, and artillery and aircraft destroyed them.

Banned from invading North Vietnam or attacking bases and supply routes in neighboring Cambodia and Laos, Westmoreland used the body count of enemy dead as a measure of success. Despite an increasingly skeptical press, he demanded ever large resources. Between 1964 and 1968, which saw two major operations - Cedar Falls and Junction City - American troop numbers in Vietnam rose from 16,000 to over half a million. The 1968 Tet Offensive, in which communist guerrillas attacked cities throughout South Vietnam, and the simultaneous siege of the US Marine Corps base at Khe Sanh were disasters for Westmoreland. He argued that both brought the communists costly defeats, but his critics knew that he had no credible strategy for winning the war. In June 1968, Westmoreland handed over his Vietnamese command to Creighton Abrams. He was Army Chief of Staff until 1972, when he retired from the military, and he died in Charleston in 2005 at the age of 91.